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I have already posted this on Reddit, but I might reach a better audience here.

I "uninstalled" Google Play Games using this guide by XDA. Now I need to reinstall it. This is the command, how I should be able to reinstall the app: adb shell cmd package install-existing <name of package>. But there is one problem: My phone is on Android Lollipop, and the command doesn't exist there. I manually tried to install the apk back, with adb and with the normal package installer. The Settings app always says something like "Not installed for user" (translated from another language).

So I have 2 questions:

  1. In which Android version was this command introduced?
  2. How can I get this app back?

PS: I have root access, but would prefer a non-rooted solution.

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  • 1
    @Firelord it says 'Success', but still 'Not installed for user' in Settings. Damn, I got a headache from this. Screenshot here.
    – user11227590
    Commented Apr 14, 2019 at 9:05
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    Last resort would be a factory reset. But looking at the help of the cmd command, it might be worth trying adb shell "cmd package compile --reset com.google.android.play.games". Also, though I doubt it works it cannot hurt: pm enable --user 0 <pkg>, pm unhide --user 0 <pkg>.
    – Izzy
    Commented Apr 27, 2019 at 9:25
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    In XDA developers forum, I found that the command adb shell cmd package install-existing <name of package> can reinstall an uninstalled system app for the current user. But, when I tried it in my Android 7.0 smartphone, it showed an error that the command install-existing could not be found. Can this command be modified to get some result?
    – Puspam
    Commented Aug 15, 2019 at 13:26
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    pm enable --user 0 worked for me! thanks!
    – 张实唯
    Commented Oct 14, 2019 at 13:40
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    for me cmd package install-existing inside adb shell worked
    – Maciej Bledkowski
    Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 19:39

1 Answer 1

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First, enable the package by using pm enable --user 0 <pkg>, and then install it by using cmd package install-existing <pkg>.

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